Gadds food and drink pop-up shop in Margate offering low price items and ‘use by’ info

Weekend pop-up shop

A pop-up shop will open in Margate for this weekend offering cheaply priced food and drink and sharing information about “use by” dates and best before dates

Gadds food and drink, run by Chris and Kim Gadd, is an online shop which operates a delivery service. It takes food which is past the before before date but still perfectly safe to eat, meaning prices can be kept as low as 10p per item.

But this weekend Gadds will be taking over the former Vaparettes shop at 131 High Street from 10am to 4pm.

Chris and Kim Gadd

Dad-of-two Chris said: “We had the opportunity to use an empty shop for a weekend before it goes back to the estate agents. We decided to open a pop up as we feel there is a great need in Margate for people to get food and drink as cheaply as possible.

“Food inflation in the UK has hits some of its highest levels, running at 18% inflation in February 2023. More people are now just scraping by or having to choose between eat or heat, food or bills, and it’s not just people on benefits but also those in full time work.

“We are already established online but as we are Facebook based our customer base can be extended much more to those who are not on social media.

“We are also using this weekend as a great educational base where we try to educate people on the difference between “use by” dates and best before dates. If anyone is unsure on the quality and taste of any of our products, then this weekend is the perfect time to come down, have a look in person and taste a few products.

“Consuming goods that have passed the BBE date does not mean it is inedible, In fact in most cases with modern packaging you would not even tell the difference between a food item with 3 months left before the date and the same food item that is 3 months past BBE date.

“We are in our 10th year of trading now and we still find that too much food is just sent to landfill when it is perfectly good to eat.”

Join the facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/foodanddrinkshop

2 Comments

  1. Is the BBE date more to do with the plastic packaging leeching into the food rather than the food going off.

    • No. Plastic takes years to degrade. As the name suggests it’s just that it is ‘best before’ that date. It might not taste quite as nice as it would if eaten before that date but won’t taste that different. When I worked in a major high street chain we always used to eat up the chocolate that had gone past it’s ‘best before’ date. One year we had loads of crème eggs!

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